


The night after the show

by showsforsnails



Category: Bob Dylan (Musician), Rock Music RPF, The Band (Band 1968)
Genre: Adrenaline, Alcohol, Awkward Crush, First Time, Hand Jobs, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Oral Sex, Rivalry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 00:45:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13536090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/showsforsnails/pseuds/showsforsnails
Summary: “Go slower here,” Bob says. “No, even slower. Wait, I’ll just…”Robbie stops, and Bob plays the tune again on his own.





	The night after the show

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Вечер после концерта](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12915873) by [showsforsnails](https://archiveofourown.org/users/showsforsnails/pseuds/showsforsnails). 



Bob is screaming, whispering, scowling like a madman, ignoring the sweat running down his face, waving his long thin arms, twisting, stamping his feet, dancing, whirling around, jumping, and it makes a strange sort of dance, inseparable from the performance itself. Bob is giving life to something immeasurable and unimaginable, the crowd’s whistles and yells only seem to provoke him. It’s unbelievable how much strength and energy this small bony body can contain.  
Bob turns on his heels and is face to face with Robbie. He plays on, picking the strings with his impossibly long fingernails (Robbie watches him, eyes wide open, because any moment he might start playing something new), his eyelashes lowered, then he looks up, laughs and shouts, knowing the crowd won’t hear his words anyway, “What the fuck is wrong with them today?”  
Before Robbie has time to reply, Bob turns around, nods to Rick and goes back to the microphone. He’s singing again, and his voice is plaintive, sneering, full of rage and despair at the same time. Robbie plays on, watching Bob, not really hearing Rick’s bass, the clear sound of Richard’s keys, Garth’s organ and Mickey’s drums, but knowing they’re all there. The noise from the crowd probably doesn’t stop even for a moment, but they don’t hear that. Robbie must be asleep and dreaming the last half a year because everything that goes on is too unreal.  
Later, in the car, Bob, squeezing deep into a corner, twitches as though he’s electrified, laughs in a sharp, nervous way and talks about tonight’s crowd.  
“They never give up. They just keep yelling… do they ever hear anything but themselves?”  
Rick, sitting on the other side from Robbie, giggles.  
“Bob, they must be coming to hear themselves at your gig.”  
Bob takes a drag on his cigarette, lowers the car window and breathes out into the night. They are driving past rain-wet streets, and in the dark they look exactly like streets in any other city they’ve played the day before yesterday, last week, last month.  
“We should raise the prices then. That’s what I’m going to say to Albert, ‘Albert, the tickets are too cheap. How did you miss that?’”  
Robbie laughs. Bob glances at him, squints, spreads his lips in a grin and goes on:  
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I’ll say, ‘Albert, you’re losing your touch. They’re not coming to listen to me anyway, can they at least pay me more? I have to get something out of this.”  
The car turns suddenly and Bob is flung from his corner, falling against Robbie. Robbie reacts too late and for a few moments Bob’s chest is pressed to his shoulder, hand on his hip, hair brushing his neck and cheek. Then Bob pulls back and gives him a look that is either shy or inquisitive - it’s hard to tell. Robbie feels hot, and the only thing he can manage in his embarrassment and confusion is a smile. Bob waits, then smiles back.  
At the hotel Bob complains to the huge, bearlike Albert Grossman, that “the amps are fucked up, Albert, they were running on half-power, I mean, we were still great, but this should never happen again.” Albert nods calmly and says he’ll deal with it.  
Bob takes a glass of cheap red wine someone offers him, sits down on the floor, even though there’s an empty chair next to him, leans back against the wall and closes his eyes. Robbie thinks a bit and takes the chair.  
“How did it go, Bobby?” yells Neuwirth across the room.  
“Great,” Bob calls back. He opens his eyes and takes a sip from his glass. “I’m starting to think that the same people are following me from gig to gig, like they had nothing better to do. Maybe you’re driving them after us at your own expense, Albert? You have to spend all this money you earn from me on something.”  
Albert gives him a condescending smile.  
“I’m spending it on you.”  
Next, all attention is on Bobby Neuwirth who is doing nasty and brilliant impressions of different people from the crowd. His listeners roar laugh every time, even when instead of strangers he starts picking on them. That is the only way to survive in his company. Robbie laughs with the rest when it’s his turn, when Neuwirth pretends to be him following Bob around all the time, staying as close as possible to him, hints he’d sleep in the same bed with Bob if only he was allowed to. He glances at Bob and sees that he’s sitting, staring ahead, and seems to hear nothing that goes on around him. As if he’s sleeping with his eyes open. Then Robbie raises his head, sees Neuwirth watching him with a grin and silently looks back, until Neuwirth scowls and looks away to choose another victim.  
Bob emerges from his torpor only by the time when everyone has decided they’re fed up with sitting in the suite and they should see what the local clubs are like.  
“You’re coming with us?” Rick says, stopping in front of Robbie, supporting an already drunk Richard.  
Robbie has no time to reply because Bob, suddenly awake, gets up.  
“Robbie,” he says, “get your guitar, I want to try something.”  
And he goes to his bedroom.  
Robbie spreads his arms apologetically, but he doesn’t mind. Not just because he’s used to this already, but also because watching Bob working on another song is the most exciting thing in the world.  
“You see,” he tells Rick. “You should go without me.”  
“Our thoughts will be with you,” Richard says. “But not all the time.”  
“Yeah,” Rick agrees, “I hope we won’t have time for that.”  
As Robbie closes the door, he can clearly hear Bobby Neuwirth’s voice through it:  
“Barnacle man has left the room.”  
It’s followed by a roar of laughter from the others.  
Bob doesn’t look as though he’s heard anything. He’s already sitting on his bed, his houndstooth jacket is off, and he’s leaning over his guitar, trying to tune it without much luck. Robbie sits down next to him, checks his own guitar and waits.  
“Something like that,” Bob mutters, “before I forget.”  
He starts singing in a high unsure voice, almost wordlessly, accompanying himself. Robbie listens and tentatively back him. Somehow even in this raw state everything that Bob sings charms him.  
“Wait,” says Robbie. “This would work better.” And he plays a chord.  
“Uh-huh,” says Bob and sings on, more confidently and clearly.  
It’s amazing how driven Bob is. Robbie wonders once again where he finds the energy and the will to go on and never stop. If Robbie were in his place, he would have probably given up long ago and gone home, but Bob doesn’t just keep playing, he’s also writing songs at an unnatural speed. It’s strange that no one has yet suspected him of a deal with the Devil, like they once did with Robbie. Robbie isn’t blind, he knows that there are probably more different drugs in Bob’s blood than there is blood, especially because lately he’s been mainly living off pills, but Robbie has met other drug users and none of them had been as obsessed with their work.  
Robbie has never heard songs like the ones Bob writes, so he listens, watches and remembers. This is the only way he can learn: watching the masters of the craft and repeating after them until he can create something of his own.  
“Go slower here,” Bob says. “No, even slower. Wait, I’ll just…”  
Robbie stops, and Bob plays the tune again on his own.  
“Your turn.”  
Robbie starts again while Bob nods, shakes his head or says, “Faster… Slower… Again…”  
Bob gets to the end of the song and covers the strings with his hand. Robbie, excited, tries to play it again and work on a trick that sounds good to him. He wonders distantly if everyone has left or anyone has stayed behind.  
Cold fingers cover his wrist. Robbie stares at them for a while, then he raises his head, and Bob kisses him. His lips are dry and rough, he smells like cigarette smoke, wine, sweat and something else Robbie isn’t sure about. Robbie, still holding his guitar, not touching Bob, kisses back.  
Bob pulls away, licking his lips and narrowing his eyes.  
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” he says, looking at Robbie with a strange expression on his face. “What do you think?”  
Robbie would have agreed with him if he could still think but instead he carefully puts the guitar on the floor, takes his glasses off and puts them away, sticks his fingers in Bob’s tangled curls, puts a hand on the back of his head and pulls him closer for another kiss.  
Bob moves closer, pressing a knee against Robbie’s knee, drags a fingernail down his throat to the collar of his shirt (Robbie shivers) and gives him a small bite on the lower lip.  
Robbie feels dizzy. He can imagine very vaguely what to do in these situations (Ronnie Hawkins’ parties and what went on there are still legendary, but for the past six years women have been more than enough for Robbie), but he’s trying not to embarrass himself. While Bob is struggling with his shirt-buttons, Robbie is trying to undress his employer and failing.  
The thought of how far whatever they’re doing at this moment is from a working relationship makes him laugh. Bob pulls away and frowns.  
“What?”  
Robbie shakes his head, trying to suppress laughter.  
“Nothing. It’s just that I wouldn’t do anything like this with Ronnie Hawkins.”  
“You’re lucky I’m not him, but why think of him now?” says Bob. “What is it about me that reminds you of him?”  
“Nothing, fortunately,” says Robbie honestly and awkwardly laughs again.  
Bob pulls him down on the bed, kisses his neck and undoes his pants. Robbie gasps from his touch, moans weakly when he feels Bob’s tongue and lips on his cock, catches himself thinking that he’ll have to do the same later, and who knows if he’ll manage, and then he doesn’t think about anything anymore. He just moves his hands on the bed cover, until he sinks one of them in Bob’s hair, and hopes that they are the only ones left in the suite, that everyone has left long ago.  
A little later Bob lies next to him, props himself up on his elbow, puts Robbie’s hand on his cock and doesn’t let go. Robbie moves his hand obediently, guided by the pressure, sees the pale face with a half-open mouth and shining eyes hanging over him, closes his eyes and presses his temple into Bob’s elbow. Soon he feels a warm wetness on his fingers, while Bob shudders and pants next to him.

Bob brushes a hand over his back (somehow, his hands are still cold and Robbie can feel this even through the fabric of his shirt), moves away and gets up.  
“I mean, no one usually bothers me when I work,” he says, buttoning up. “And the only one who could barge in here is Bobby, and he won’t be back soon. Get dressed anyway.”  
Does this mean, Robbie almost thinks of asking jealously, that Neuwirth’s presence wouldn’t bother them?  
“I want to play something else,” says Bob.  
Robbie, who only a moment ago didn’t want to move at all, nods, sits up and looks for his glasses. He’s ready to play for Bob as long as Bob likes.


End file.
